Tuesday, February 08, 2011

I recently came across this website that will show you how much inflation has increased the prices of common items since the year you were born. Simply enter your birth year in the box (as long as it was after 1950), and see how much prices have changed since.

Click on the image below, which shows inflation since my birth year, to go to the website.

Sunday, March 07, 2010

At ASCD this weekend, I have been introduced to an exciting new technology for creating presentations called Prezi. Presentations created using Prezi are substantially better than any PowerPoint presentation I have ever seen. Best of all, Prezi is web-based, and the basic version is free. There is an enhanced version that includes a desktop edition of Prezi, but almost anything you want to do can be done with the free version.

Below is a sample from the Prezi website. Click the arrow, allow it to download, and then click the arrow to advance through the presentation.

**Update: I have created my first Prezi to explain Google's new Wonder Wall feature. You can access it here.**

College InSight, an initiative of the Institute for College Access & Success, makes data on college affordability, diversity, and student success easy to find, compare, and analyze.College
InSight is the successor to EconomicDiversity.org and provides data for
almost 5,000 U.S. colleges and universities. In addition to
college-level data, it features totals and averages for states,
sectors, and other groupings of colleges. College InSight is both an
easy-to-use consumer resource and a sophisticated research tool
designed to help shed light on important trends and issues.

There are three interconnected ways to tap into College InSight’s wide range of data:

1. Spotlight - Start by selecting a college, state, or type of school to see a snapshot of key data and a relevant comparison.

2. Topics - Start with a topic, then dig deeper to see how specific colleges, states, or school types compare.

3. Explore All Data - Build your own table with any combination of colleges, variables, or years in the College InSight database.

Shakespeare Searched is a search
engine designed to provide quick access to passages from Shakespeare's
plays and sonnets. We cluster search results by topic, work, and
character to make it easy to find exactly what you're looking for. From
something as simple as identifying the speaker of a particular quote to
discovering underlying thematic elements across works, Shakespeare
Searched has you covered.

This website is not a replacement for a copy of the text.
It provides no analysis or footnotes. It is meant to supplement a
traditional reading of a work.

Shakespeare Searched for Teachers

Shakespeare Searched is a great resource for you and your students.
You can recommend it to your students when writing papers to quickly
locate passages that they remember reading but are having trouble
finding. It provides citations for each passage so using what they
found is a breeze. Shakespeare Searched returns only passages from the
works of Shakespeare -- no analysis, opinions, or interpretations. That
means potential issues with plagiarism or uncited sources are avoided.
We provide the text, the rest is up to the student.

You can plan entire lessons or assignments around
Shakespeare Searched. Have your students search for a subject like
"love" or "death" and then report back on the results. What sort of
topic clusters are generated? Use the tabs to cluster the results by
work to see which play or sonnet a theme appears in the most. Or
cluster by character to see what kind of patterns emerge.

Shakespeare Searched for Students

So you read the play and
you're writing the paper but you can't remember where that one quote
you need is. That's where Shakespeare Searched comes in. Just search by
character, work, or a keyword or two and we'll find your quote complete
with citation. For example, remember all that stuff in Romeo and Juliet about thumb-biting? What was that about? It's all right here. Wasn't that easier than searching through the tiny type in your Shakespeare book?

Shakespeare Searched doesn't give you sample essays, analysis, or
anything like that. What it does do is help you generate your own
ideas. Maybe you're having trouble coming up with a paper topic? Need
some inspiration? Search for a particular play or character and check
out the clusters on the left. They give you a quick topical and
thematic overview and are a great starting point.

For example, a search of Much Ado About Nothing
brings back a "Love" topic cluster with 66 passages in it. Open up that
cluster by clicking on the plus symbol next to the cluster title and
you'll see a sub-cluster for "Scorn." What does love have to do with
scorn? And I thought this was a comedy? Explore the clusters to find
out. Shakespeare Searched helps you uncover these kinds of connections
and gets you on your way to a great paper.